The Health Service Executive has recorded a deficit of €255 million this year but most of this is to be offset by money set aside for nursing home refunds in 2007 which have not been claimed.
Some €216 million allocated for the refund of illegal nursing home charges is to be used to offset the deficit.
The remainder of the deficit is to be made up of savings of €9 million from the HSE southern area, €2 million in savings from the HSE north eastern area, €6 million which was set aside for health projects from the dormant accounts fund which is not yet spent, €1 million allocated this year for the hepatitis C insurance scheme which has not been spent and some €20 million which was set aside as capital funding for information technology in the health sector which went unspent this year.
The figures were presented to a meeting of the Oireachtas health committee last evening by Minister for Health Mary Harney. She said moving this money around would cover the HSE deficit and there would then only be a requirement for the Dáil to approve a supplementary estimate for the HSE of €1,000. The matter is expected to be voted on in the Dáil today.
Members of the committee from the southern region questioned how the €9 million in savings could have been made in the southern region at a time when equipment there was lying idle.
The Cork North Central Labour TD Kathleen Lynch said there were four theatres at the new Cork maternity hospital still lying idle and a new machine at the hospital had never been used other than for a photoshoot.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr James Reilly asked why there were plans to close an orthopaedic unit at Navan hospital for the month of December if the north east had saved €2 million.
Ms Harney said she did not have a specific breakdown of how the savings were made in the south and northeast but she undertook to provide more details in the Dáil today. She believed it had just been allocated more than it required.
She said while the €255 million HSE deficit was less than 2 per cent of its overall budget she did not want to "minimise its significance". Budgets had been ex- ceeded on the demand-led community drug schemes, more had been spent than planned on contracting beds in private nursing homes to relieve pressure in acute hospitals and more patients had been seen in acute hospitals than budgeted for.
The Minister said the HSE had put a break-even plan in place in September to contain costs. A recruitment ban was put in place which was delivering results. "Pay expenditure is down €18 million per month when comparing August and October spend levels," she said.